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The other day at the annual Women in the World conference in New York, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took to the stage to speak bluntly and directly about what she called a "culture of rape." She talked about the brutal rape and disemboweling of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi last December, and the horror it evoked among people of goodwill.

"She had aspirations for her life," said Secretary Clinton. "But if her life embodied the aspirations of a rising nation, then her death - her murder - pointed to the many challenges still holding it back." The culture of rape in India - and elsewhere - "prevents women from being seen as equal human beings."

India, she said in a speech that has been widely circulated particularly in feminist circles, "will rise or fall with its women."

A New York-based app developer is trying to help with that cause. Created by a team led by filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman, whose 2009 film The Line plumbed the controversial areas of sexuality and consent, the Circle of 6 app debuted in the United States last year. It was aimed at young women and provided an easy path to get help from trusted friends in difficult situations, from risky sexual encounters to actual assaults. Circle of 6 was a winner of the 2011 Apps Against Abuse challenge held by the Obama Administration and announced by Vice President Joe Biden, and has received awards from the Institute of Medicine and the Avon Foundation for Women.

And now it's live in India. Schwartzman and the Circle of 6 team noticed that after the horrifying rape-murder in Delhi that Indian women were downloading the American app. They quickly made the decision to develop an Indian version that points to in-country resources and takes cultural differences into account.

"Basically, we saw the number of downloads in India increase by 1,000 percent after the gang rape in New Delhi - making India the No. 2 spot outside the U.S. for downloads," said Schwartzman. "We were motivated to translate to Hindi and find the best on the ground resources in New Delhi we could find for women in need."

Clearly the Delhi murder was something of a turning point. Many thousands took the streets and the government acted quickly. India has become an international symbol for pushing back against an endemic culture of rape that dehumanizes women. On Saturday, The Guardian carried the fascinating story of the Red Brigade, a group of uniformed female vigilantes who physically punish sexual offenders. "Parents were telling girls to stay in their homes so there would be no incidents. They said, 'if you go to school, boys will be troubling you, so stay home and there will be no sexual violence'," 25-year-old teacher Usha Vishwakarma told reporter Gethin Chamberlain. "But we said no, and we decided to form a group to fight for ourselves. We decided we would not just complain; we would take a lead and fight for ourselves." And Breakthrough’s Bell Bajao!, launched in India in 2008, is a cultural and media campaign that calls on men and boys to take a stand against domestic violence. The campaign seeks to reduce domestic violence and to highlight the role that men and boys can play in reducing violence.

It's against that backdrop that the Circle of 6 team brought some practical, easily accessed digital technology to the cause. The challenges for the social entrepreneurs were cultural and technological. For one, the U.S. Circle of 6 app was very much aimed at the dating scene in this country; "the concept of 'dating' is not super relevant to Indian users, it's a new concept," explained Schwartzman. "So some parts of the app had to be framed differently, although functionality is the same." Then there was the initial choice of language - "of 152 languages, is Hindi the right one after English?" asks Schwartzman. The resources were an issue: the team had to vet the rape counseling hotlines, for example. Finally, although there are 44 million smart phone users in India, that's still a small percentage of the population.

But this was a demand-drive decision and the New Delhi launch has been endorsed by leading Indian women’s advocacy organization Jagori and partners at the UN.

“The app's vibrant colors, user-friendly interface, and addition of Hindi script are designed to make connection easy for people of all genders and sexual orientation to engage and support each other's personal safety," says creative director Thomas Cabus.

"I'm a part of the tech community because I truly believe technology can be a force for good. Circle of 6 is exactly such a force, and it's exciting to be developing new tools that advance safety for people around the globe," says app developer Christine Moran.

The iOS version is out now and the Android version comes out next week at circleof6app.com. Schwartzman knows it's a leap of faith to test such a huge market, but the opportunity is a compelling one.

“We are committed to helping citizens around the globe connect with their own safety networks in times of need, often in communities where the police are not a safe option.”